Supporting Youth with the Most Need

Long before the pandemic, an estimated five million young people were experiencing disruptions to their education through experiences like a placement in foster care, an experience with homelessness, or incarceration. Many saw multiple disruptions simultaneously. The compounding nature of adversity results in a small number of young people who experience enormous, nearly insurmountable obstacles to success—no matter how it is defined. They are likely to have the most serious, most complex needs, and the measure of real, meaningful equity in a system is whether those students’ needs are met.